As sensor technologies improve and data processing and transmission capabilities improve and become more widespread, the potential for intrusions on private citizens' privacy is also increased. One area of particular sensitivity for privacy intrusion is the rapid increase in video surveillance. It has been shown that there are technological means available for preventing certain kinds of privacy intrusion with video surveillance equipment, and reducing the effectiveness or effects of other privacy intrusion. Some ways to prevent and/or reduce the effects of certain types of privacy intrusion are described in U.S. Patent Application Serial No. 2003/0231769, entitled “Application Independent System, Method, and Architecture for Privacy protection, Enhancement, Control, and Accountability in Imaging Service Systems”, filed on Jun. 18, 2002, commonly assigned to the assignee herein, and incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. These methods include the re-rendering or summarization of surveillance video so that only certain details are presented (those required for the task, such as the number and location of people in the camera field of view) while hiding other details (e.g., the appearance and, hence, race, age, gender of those people). The deployment of such privacy protection schemes may be encouraged by public opinion or even legislated in certain jurisdictions and for certain purposes.
Accordingly, it would be desirable and highly advantageous to have further methods and apparatus for providing privacy protection in video surveillance systems that enable the public to ascertain that such privacy protection is in place.